Mr. Hinchcliff looked up, hearing imperfectly. He had been lost in the rapt contemplation of the college cap tied by a string to his portmanteau handles-the outward and visible sign of his newly-gained pedagogic position-in the rapt appreciation of the college cap and the pleasant anticipations it excited. For Mr. Hinchcliff had just matriculated at London University, and was going to be junior assistant at the Holmwood Grammar School-a very enviable position.
Len Mattern is a space merchant, seasoned from decades of meandering from star to star in a tramp freighter. His obsession is the high-class prostitute, Lyddy, and Len has spent his entire adult life amassing sufficient wealth to wed her, which he does at the story's beginning. The rest of the tale is told mostly in flashback.
Lieutenant Commander Frank Jacklin is blown up in a thorium bomb explosion while on the battleship Alaska. He awakens in the body of Winnie Tompkins who had perpetrated the explosion. As Tompkins, he learns of a plot by German agents to poison Franklin D. Roosevelt and he tries to warn the authorities. He continues to become involved in intrigue until another accident restores Tompkins to his body, leaving Jacklin in the body of a dog.
Abby Wright is a reporter for the local news station KRT whose husband Ellis disappeared a week ago. She's good friends with an engineer from the station named Cole and has dinner with him. Later they go out on a walk on a woods trail in a park where strange alterations in reality start taking place.